MEDITATE THE POUNDS AWAY: How I Met My Weight Loss and Wellness Goals Through Meditation

Category Archives: wisdom

Who doesn’t love a trip to the spa? You walk in the door and immediately, you relax. The air is clean and oh-so breathable. The sounds are calm and relaxing. The lighting is low-key and the decor is reminiscent of nature. Often there is the sound of water. The furnishings are well-maintained. There is no clutter and the feel is clean and fresh.

Now, who can afford a daily trip to the spa? Not many of us, that’s for sure. The next best thing is to give your home that spa feel. In my book, I go into some detail as to the steps you might take. But here, I’ll give a bit of a crash course.

Start at the doorway to your home. The entry way should give a hint as to what is inside. This is generally going to be your porch or portico. It should be clean, uncluttered, with any furniture in clean condition and good repair. I have a medium-sized fountain going with lush greenery and a comfortable rattan bench to sit on when removing shoes. Like at any competent spa, you kick your shoes off outside the door. After all, you don’t want the toxins, poisons, dangerous fecal matter and sewer run off that is present on all streets and sidewalks stepping into your home! When you step through the door, stop and close your eyes for a minute. What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you see? What do you feel? HOW do you feel? The preferred answer? You feel like you’ve walked into a spa!

You should hear either total quiet or very relaxing music or even nature sounds. Since I have a fountain in the kitchen for the cats, and since I have fountains near most all windows, I hear the movement of water first. I often keep nature sounds going in my house daily. My pets love it. They also enjoy a soft, low-key instrumental music. Since I work at home, I’m much more able to do my work well in a relaxing, natural environment.

You should NOT smell last night’s baked fish or tonight’s veggie lasagna. You should smell a fresh, relaxing scent or something that is very neutral. Please, please, please! NO GLADE or other toxic air fresheners! They’ve been proven to be truly dangerous for humans and pets. If you want to add scent, I generally recommend something like organic lavender essential oil in a diffuser with purified water. There are many alternatives, based on what you’re trying to achieve. Aromatherapy has been proven to have a positive effect on your mental attitude.

Look around you now. What do you see? Do you see clutter? That needs to go! A cluttered home stifles the energy flow that is necessary for a serene, relaxing environment. Many things can hide in clutter – dirt, dust, allergens, vermin, and just plain old crap. Get rid of it! The air flow to your home is as important as your breathing is to your body. Think of it this way: If something is obstructing your airway, you won’t be able to breathe and give your body the much-needed oxygen that is required. If clutter is obstructing your home, your home is unable to breathe and give you the peace that you require to live a healthy life.

Now what do you feel when you walk through your door? Do you feel stressed? Oh so much to do!!!! Or do you feel relaxed and grateful for your peaceful space? In our case, when we walk through our door, we immediately relax and lose all the annoyances that we experienced in the ‘outside’ world. Between us, we work four jobs so stress could always take over if we allowed it. But we do not. My husband says the most important gift is to walk through the door and feel instantly at peace. Here our world is quiet. Here our world is restful. This is where we renew our energy.

It’s very rare that we do not have a good night’s sleep and not a lot of people can say that at age 65 and 61. We awake renewed and ready for a new day.

I highly recommend reading up a bit on the basics of Feng Sui. While we don’t have the luxury of repositioning our homes on the piece of land where they’re located, we can certainly have some control on the interior spaces.

Now some will say that nature is the perfect ‘spa’ and in many cases, that’s absolutely true. However in the area where we are, it is close to impossible to find an environment in nature that will allow this type of relaxation. As an example, we often would go to an area in our boat about 6 or 7 miles north of our island. We’d run the boat up on a sand bar, anchor and sit naked in salt water up to our chests, with a cool beverage and just ‘be’ with nature. The shore birds were marvelous and calling to one another. Spotted Eagle Rays would swoosh past my arm, mangrove snapper would be feeding nearby. You could hear and see nature in it’s glory – for about 3 minutes. Then someone who didn’t appreciate nature would come roaring through a no-wake zone at high speed, in an over-loaded boat with stereo blaring. :::sigh::: There goes nature. Then the next overloaded boat 2 minutes later would decide that they wanted to have a party about 40 feet from where we were when there happened to be a hundred of miles of similar spots in reach. So, sadly, in our area, it is not possible to truly have a ‘spa’ moment in nature. Too many people don’t respect the space, property and peace of others.

Often my posts are inspired by the events of a day or the day before. In this case, this post was inspired by a particularly spiteful, bullying post or two on a thread from someone half-a world away who felt that their choices were the only choices. The website I enjoy so much is generally chock-full of healthy tips and ideas and is dedicated to health, wellness, peace and a non-toxic life so it’s surprising to find those on there who seem opposed to the basic healthy tenants of the site. This just served to remind me that everyone makes their own choices, and that our personal choices are particularly precious to us. One’s own value system defines one’s life. If your life is dedicated to peace, wellness and a healing non-toxic atmosphere for you, your family and your pets, then this is all that matters.

You need not meditate alone. My cats love to meditate with me. My older, recently transitioned cats Mei Mei and Maggie really enjoyed meditating with me, even though it was not a daily event then.

Our fur-girls are age 6 months and 2 yrs 3 months. I’d actually assumed that they would be too rambunctious to enjoy it but they’ve surprised me. What is especially surprising is that Mhysa, the 6 month old, is the one that loves it most. She has become adamant that she be with me when I meditate. Mei Li still comes and goes and is taking it all in.

With her current issue involving the ovarian remnant from the veterinarian’s surgical mistake, I have concentrated very strongly on Mhysa’s healing in my daily meditations. She appears to understand and even digs in deeply by my side, trying to touch both my body and my upturned left palm.

If you share your life and home with these amazing creatures, you probably know how intuitive they are. They can easily access your meditations and understand what you’re doing. But did you know that you can also communicate to them using pictures, without saying a word? I’ve been doing it for years. Yes, I talk to them all day long anyway, but they can grasp the pictures you send very easily and they understand. It is, of course, important to send positive, loving pictures, or just factual pictures. Please don’t freak them out with negative pictures or scenarios!

Before we moved over a year and a half ago, I’d been sending our girls pictures of the new home. When they arrived, with boxes everywhere, they were very cool, calm and matter of fact since they knew what to expect.

Another instance involves long-distance communication: Our kitten, Mhysa, came from California but we couldn’t bring her home with us because she was too young. So she flew by herself on what ended up being a relatively short, easy flight with only one change in equipment. You would expect her to be freaked out, right? I mean, she was only 12 1/2 weeks old at that point. For many weeks, I’d been sending her pictures of her new home in my meditations, I’d sent her pictures of her new sisters (at that time, Maggie was still with us). I’d sent her images of us, of the sounds of the house and of the many kitty beds and her dining area. And then, when I knew she was on the way to the airport, I started ‘sending’ her a gentle, calming heartbeat soundtrack that I’d found on iTunes, to keep her company with all of the frightening noises, sights and smells that go with travel. I listened when meditating and sent the energy to her. If only I had such a calming influence when I travel!!! I hate flying these days! It isn’t what it used to be.

When she arrived at our local airport, we expected a frightened little girl. Instead, we found a calm little one, very happy to see us. When we got home and opened her carrier, she marched right out, looked around as if to say “Yes! This is what I expected.” She immediately made herself at home.

36 years ago, in 1979, I’d seen an animal communicator on late night TV, who explained the visualization process for communicating with our pets. I was lying in bed with my then-4 yr old sleeping toy poodle, Brigitte. She loved more than anything to ‘go out’ to play in our fenced yard. All I had to do was just mouth the words “do you want to go out?” and she would be beside herself. This was long past her last ‘out’ trip at that time. I just concentrated on seeing us get up, walk down the hall, through the foyer, the dining room, the kitchen to the back door and opening it. I only had to do it once. She lept up out of a sound sleep, and went racing down the hall in a frenzy to go out.

There are many ways to communicate with our furry and feathered family members, and this is but one option. We work with an animal communicator if we feel that there are conflicts between them, if there are behavioral issues, if there are health issues or if someone just can’t seem to follow the rules. It’s wonderful to have that resource available for us, because after all, this IS our family.

I will write more on that subject soon, along with contact information should anyone wish to find out more about it themselves. Should you have a need now or need a referral, please feel free to comment below and ask any questions you might have.

In the meantime, I strongly recommend including your cats, dogs, birds and other pets in your meditation rituals. They feel it, they understand it, and they love it. We all benefit.

If you’ve read my book, you know that I credit meditation with my weight loss. Truth be known, while I lost a lot of weight, I lost a lot of energetic weight as well and for that, I also credit meditation.

There had been some events in my life that had left me angry and damaged. Someone I loved very deeply was horribly hurt by two persons. I was angry and filled with hate for those two people. Even if I didn’t think about it daily, it was there, buried inside me and the pain of the damage that they did wouldn’t leave me.

I was also terribly hurt by not one but two addicted, abusive ex-spouses. Of these four people, two are dead now but the hate and anger had never gone away just because they had transitioned to the other side.

I am sure all of us carry some sort of deep-seated anger of a similar nature. I learned from a very gifted soul healer that this simply needed to go. This anger and hate does not serve us and tends to hold us back from growth and fulfilling our potential. Ask yourself this question: How does this anger, pain and hate help me? I’d venture a guess that you will be unable to find an true answer to that question.

Many have suffered and continue to suffer bullying in some form or another. Children carry the scars of the bullying and emotional abuse into adulthood and even to the grave. Again, it does you no service and it needs to go.

This is where you say “That’s easy for HER to say. She hasn’t lived it.” Well, I have and I was able to move past it. It was not easy but it can be done.

Here are a few tips. Meditation may help you get to the bottom of this. Go into your meditation with the intention of addressing these five items:

Pinpoint the source of your anger or pain. This should not be a generalized feeling of pain, hate or anger. Most likely, it’s a person in your life or your past. You need to realize that this anger, pain or hate should be directed towards them. You should NEVER re-direct it to yourself. It simply isn’t logical!

Examine this person from afar. He/she can no longer hurt you and you are now an adult who has proven your worth to yourself and others. OR you have moved forward in your life, away from the person who caused you anger and pain. If you look at this person now, through your current eyes, you will realize that he/she took their own frustrations with their own failures, their own fears, their own petty jealousy and their own insecurities out on you. You did nothing wrong. You really didn’t! They were able to control you if you felt the same fears, insecurities and self-doubt that they felt. If they controlled you, then they felt they were in control of themselves. In my case, the ex-husbands caused me great pain with their abuse, and yet I somehow blamed myself. As for the persons harming the person I loved, it was a jealousy issue on their part and their way to get to me was to hurt someone I loved.

Generally, some form of psychological projection is at play with those who harm you. From Wikipedia: “humans defend themselves against unpleasant impulses by denying their existence in themselves, while attributing them to others.Example, a person who is rude may constantly accuse other people of being rude.” Knowing this, once you examine the personality of the person who has hurt you, you’ll find that their abuse was rooted in their own issues such as jealousy, hate and a feeling of helplessness. Perhaps they also projected their own values on you when yours were totally different. And how did they make you feel? Angry and helpless!

See it for what it is. Now you can see that your own feelings of anger and hate are your defense and reaction to events that were not of your making.

Now, it’s time to release it. I’m not suggesting that those first steps will rid you of this anger, hate and pain but these are necessary to begin the process to do so.

There are many ways to move forward from here. Much will depend on how deep seated it is and how long you’ve refused to address it and have kept it buried inside. There’s a very strong chance that the person who harmed you had done it in many previous lives, so it can be far more complex than you might think. If there is past life involvement and if you are unable to meditate your way beyond this hate and pain, then you may need the help of someone who works with past life trauma. (I’m happy to make a recommendation if you have an interest, in the comment section below.)

The key to ridding yourself of this toxic emotion is forgiveness. I know it may seem impossible right now but once you realize that it is NOT you and that the problem lies with the other person, the best thing you can do is to move towards forgiveness for their acts.

Now, that doesn’t mean you have to talk to them, discuss with them or even see them. You must find a way to forgive in your own heart. In my case, once I analyzed all of the persons involved and saw the problem was of course, not me, I had to forgive them. No, I’m not going to be ‘best friends’ and for that matter, I still energetically deny them access to my life.

I had to come to realize that they couldn’t help who they were. I began to see them as sad characters who were incapable of moving past their own insecurities, jealousies, addictions and fears. I then could forgive them, and even more, in my meditation, I could wish them the best on their life paths.

After this, you may find that these characters still haunt you. Have hope! There are things you can do to physically remove them from your energy field. I had to do this with my ex-husband.

This is the method that works for me: I wrote on small pieces of paper, each and every way he harmed me. I then went outside to our patio with a box of matches and sat calmly and breathed deeply a few minutes, asking my guides to help me. With the intention of removing the energy and damage of the ex from my life, I lit each piece of paper and placed it in a large flower pot of sand, watching it burn. I watched the smoke rise and then realized that the awful things were gone. I saw the smoke curl into the ethers and the negative emotions were gone. I repeated this with each piece of paper until they were all burned. Then I simply breathed and felt lighter, knowing that all the pain was gone. I keep that sand-filled flower pot on our patio and it is always there for worries and pain that I can’t get rid of any other way.

The forgiveness made space in my heart and soul for positive growth. I prefer to think that getting rid of the anger and hate I’d held on to for so long, gave my body permission to get rid of the weight that I’d held on to as well. It was like there was a bright new sunrise in my life – a new day!

“To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.”― Plutarch

“The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.” ― Bob Marley

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” ― Marcus Aurelius

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”― Rene Descartes

I encourage you all to read the words of the many great people on our planet, and of course words written by great writers for their characters as well. There is much wisdom out there for us all and we can learn from the experiences and lives of others. We don’t have to create it all ourselves.

Do you have favorite quotes? Please share here in the comments section below!